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The Cure

Is it just me or are the side effects on pharmaceuticals becoming more and more terrifying? Pretty soon it seems like those side effects may become the cures themselves. Acid reflux? Take this pill, it will destroy your esophagus. No more reflux! Hearing voices? Now you’re deaf. Depression? These pills will cause you to commit suicide, now you don’t have to worry about anything, nevermind your depression!

It’s not a side effect, it’s a feature.

I think the only thing worse than drug side effects are the commercials. If I have to see a sad animated grey blob complain about its depression one more time, I’ll probably need to be heavily medicated myself.

All joking aside, medicine has come a long way from the hocus pocus and spirit healing of generations past. While there are flaws in the fabric of the modern medical industry, the benefits certainly outweigh the costs. The scientific results of the last last century speak volumes. Humans now live far longer and more healthier lives than they did a hundred years ago. While it’s true that we seem to have lost something personal in the exchange (not having your own personal medicine man with less than a hundred patients is a bitch), I don’t think that going back to faith healing, shamanic medicine practices, or crystal healers is a step forward.

The major issue with medicine today is simply the number of people in the world that need help. Trying to create drugs with mass market appeal that will also not completely ruin the human body is difficult at best. Though we all share nearly identical DNA, our individual chemistry is as unique as our perspective. To make drugs that solve common problems across wide swaths of a diverse population…that’s almost miraculous.

Still, it doesn’t stop those side effects from being absolutely ridiculous.

On that note, I am required, by law, to inform you that the side effects of Happle Tea comics include but are not limited to:

Lesser? Its gotten to the point that even the most trivial of drugs will kill you. If I had something like asthma, I’d rather deal with the occasional flare-up rather than risk suffocating to death in the middle of the night because of preventive drugs.

Pfft. Those are mild ones!
I learned from a forum thread that the patient information leaflet (package insert, for you yanks) for Ritalin in these here parts warns you that the side effects might include sudden death. And it still isn’t the worst of the bunch – Clozaril (apparently, some kind of antipsychotic) can cause “persistent painful erection of the penis” and “sudden unexplained death”.

Why is the doctor writing “psychological remedies?” I don’t understand… if the doctor is prescribing pills, those are not psychological remedies and simply gives a negative connotation to psychology. Psychiatrists are the ones who prescribe pills. But if the doctor IS prescribing psychological remedies, I would like to know what they are O_o

I actually just recently got new pills myself, and just yesterday I forgot to take them. Upon stepping outside, i was overwhelmed by the beauty of everything. The pills had made me stop looking at the sky. They stopped me from taking walks to enjoy nature, I stopped reading new books, I had stopped enjoying life without even noticing. Naturally this concerned me, so i spoke with my doctor about it today.
They told me this was a good thing. My new adderall pills were correcting my adhd, alright. They were stopping me from doing the distracting things and letting me to the constructive things, like homework. I suppose thats true, my grades are higher than ever now, but now I’m conflicted.
Should I give up the beauty of the world for a successful future?

I realized the same thing when I was on ADD pills, too, and I was on the lowest dose they’d prescribe, and only on and off it. After I started getting testosterone shots for something unrelated, my emotions became exceptionally monotone when I took the pills… I couldn’t feel the subtle and rapturous emotions I’d used to be able to feel, and started to forget them. Heck, I couldn’t feel great happiness or great sadness anymore, nor was I able to cry out of sadness or happiness when I needed to. I couldn’t change myself, because the pills made me so emotionally apathetic that I couldn’t get to the point where I cared enough to change. Looking back, it was miserable. I barely realized it when I was on them… but thankfully, since I went off them sometimes, I realized how bad it was.
/blathering
…Only continue, in my opinion, if you think the beauty of that future outweighs the beauty you’ll be missing; if you’re sure you won’t forget how to experience beauty, so that future can be lovely; and if you know that not experiencing that beauty for so long will not affect your performance negatively, anyhow.

Well you guys are just lucky. When I don’t take my ADHD meds, the only benefit I get is being wildly out of control and random depression.
Also, I feel really hot. Like my skin is burning.
Yeah, I think I feel like I appreciate the world better with medication because I’m not distracted by every little goddamn thing.

Actually, I found my depression worsens while I’m on my medicine. They had to prescribe another pill just to even it out, and then I started having to take bc to make sure I maintained a healthy weight. Not to mention the sleep pills I have to take so my depression pills don’t keep me up all night. And all the vitamin supplements I take because my appetite has shrunk and I havn’t been getting enough sunlight since I started being more ‘productive’. Don’t you think that’s a little much?
I don’t really see the problem with being ‘distracted’. So what if I’m enjoying the world around me? But I suppose not everyones a transcendentalist at heart.

Well it might not be ADD/ADHD, or you need a different medication. people with bi-polar sometimes also have ADHD. Also I know y family members who have ADD, and Bi-polar had to do a lot of experimenting with different medications, and doses to find something that works for them.

Some people expect the first drug they take is going to work, and if it doesn’t nothing will. That’s why there are so many different drugs out there. Sometimes you need to change medication as you grow older, and you body chemistry changes.

my doctors attempted to treat my add with several depressant type medications, side effects included making me a total jerk to something that caused my blood to stop clotting and bruises to appear from the slightest bump. i decided that the medication was unnecessary in my case because it caused no harm to me or others. i just have to work harder.

God, I know! Same thing happens to me with any prescription migraine meds (imitrex….) same goes for allergy meds “Allergy attack? take this and you’ll be right as rain! Oh, you were passed out for 12 hours? Hmm… but your allergies didn’t bother you, did they? :D”

Instead of fixing the problem they just force your body to avoid dealing with it in any way, shape, or form by knocking you the hell out.

The pharmaceutical companies list every single symptom, that any single person, in any of the experiments, complains-of. There are problems with this:
1) If a symptom did not occur a statistically significant amount, then it is correct to say that it was likely due to chance, and wrong to say that it is a possible side effect. Listing not-statistically-significant values is the opposite of science.
2) Most of the side effects listed are what physicians call non-specific symptoms. Non-specific symptoms are symptoms that are so common among illnesses that they tell the physician absolutely nothing about what’s wrong with the person. Being a physician is an extremely frustrating profession, and ironically, it’s a career choice that attracts people that are not good with ambiguity.
3) Most of the things in the list of side effects are untestable.

So if most of them are useless, and they are, then why are they listed? Because there are too many litigious lawyers out there, and that’s an industry where the demand follows the supply.

Yes, malpractice can occur, although it’s rare, but actual malpractice is not what gets you sued for malpractice. Those lawsuits, in most cases, occur because family members are not satisfied with an outcome. This is not something that a physician can always control. We all die. It’s part of life.

In most cases the family members that sue are the ones that were not part of the patients care. If I am caring for my ill family member, then I know what to expect at each stage. If I am not involved in my family-member’s care, and she dies, then I might become very angry, and I might sue. In many cases it’s guilt that fuels the anger.

Most physicians are sued many times during their career. My spouse has worked as a physician for many years in specialties that typically have a low percentage of acceptable outcomes, but she has never been sued. That’s a combination of skill and luck, that said, many of those that get sued, really don’t deserve it.

I am putting my essay-response here http://dangerismymiddlename.com/archives/7401 Can I put your comic there too? If “yes”, then I will (obviously) attribute it to you, and link-it to here. If “no”, then I will put some Creative Commons licensed generic pharmacy image there instead.

i agree that many people are subscribed medications when they shouldn’t be, but i have seen people be eaten away by depressing and saved by medication that their doctor subscribed them. this post is too over reaching and i hope nobody actually goes off a medication because of this post or it’s comments. I have seen people go off their depressing meds because they think they don’t need them and it is not a pretty sight.

If you read the post, you should understand that I am NOT saying people should get off of their meds at all, regardless of whether or not they think they need them. I’m merely pointing out how silly the list of side effects can be, and, in fact, I’m also making the point that it’s fairly miraculous that we have drugs that work as well as we do given the diverse population that is prescribed them.

Funny, I didn’t start feeling like that until after I started taking the Prozac. Although one side effect of the Prozac was getting fired. Because apparently happy me didn’t want to take their shit anymore.